One afternoon a council--we may appropriately say of war--was held in
St. Just. The scene of the council was the shop of Maggot, the
blacksmith, and the members of it were a number of miners, the president
being the worthy smith himself, who, with a sledge-hammer under his arm
in the position of a short crutch, occupied the chair, if we may be
allowed so to designate the raised hearth of the forge.
The war with poverty had not been very successfully waged of late, and,
at the time of which we write, the enemy had apparently given the miners
a severe check, in the way of putting what appeared to be an insuperable
obstacle in their path.
"Now, lads," said Maggot, with a slap on the leathern apron that covered
his knees, "this is the way on it, an' do 'ee be quiet and hould yer
tongues while I do spaik."
The other men, of whom there were nearly a dozen, nodded and said, "Go
on, booy; thee's knaw tin, sure;" by which expression they affirmed
their belief that the blacksmith was a very knowing fellow.
"You do tell me that you've come so close to water that you're 'fraid to
go on? Is that so?"
"Iss, iss," responded the others.
"Well, I'll hole into the house, ef you do agree to give un a good
pitch," said Maggot.
"Agreed, one and all," cried the miners.
In order that the reader may understand the drift of this conversation,
it is necessary to explain that the indefatigable miner, David
Trevarrow, whom we have already introduced in his submarine workshop,
had, according to his plan, changed his ground, and transferred his
labour to a more hopeful part of the mine.
For some time previous the men had been at work on a lode which was very
promising, but they were compelled to cease following it, because it
approached the workings of an old part of the mine which was known to be
full of water. To tap this old part, or as the miners expressed it, to
"hole into this house of water," was, they were well aware, an
exceedingly dangerous operation. The part of the mine to which we
allude was not under the sea, but back a little from the shore, and was
not very deep at that time. The "adit"--or water-conducting--level by
which the spot was reached commenced at the cliffs, on a level with the
seashore, and ran into the interior until it reached the old mine, about
a quarter of a mile inland. Here was situated the "house," which was
neither more nor less than a number of old shafts and levels filled with
water. As they had approached the old mine its near proximity was made
disagreeably evident by the quantity of moisture that oozed through the
crevices in the rocks--moisture which ere long took the form of a number
of tiny rills--and at last began to spirt out from roof and sides in
such a way that the miners became alarmed, and hesitated to continue to
work in a place where they ran the most imminent risk of being suddenly
drowned and swept into the sea, by the bursting of the rocks that still
withstood the immense pressure of the confined water.
It was at this point in the undertaking that David Trevarrow went to
examine the place, and made the discovery of a seam--a "keenly lode"--
which had such a promising appearance that the anxiety of the miners to
get rid of this obstructive "house" was redoubled.
It was at this point, too, that the council of which we write was held,
in order to settle who should have the undesirable privilege of
constituting the "forlorn hope" in their subterranean assault.
Maggot, who was known to be one of the boldest, and, at the same time,
one of the most utterly reckless, men in St. Just, was appealed to in
the emergency, and, as we have seen, offered to attack the enemy
single-handed, on condition that the miners should give him a "pitch" of
the good lode they had found--that is, give him the right to work out a
certain number of fathoms of ore for himself.
They agreed to this, but one of them expressed some doubt as to Maggot's
courage being equal to the occasion.
To this remark Maggot vouchsafed no other reply than a frown, but his
friend and admirer John Cock exclaimed in supreme contempt,--"What!
Maggot afear'd to do it! aw, my dear, hould tha tongue."
"But he haven't bin to see the place," urged the previous speaker.
"No, my son," said Maggot, turning on the man with a look of pity, "but
he can go an' see it. Come, lads, lev us go an' see this place of
danger."
The miners rose at once as Maggot threw his forehammer on a heap of
coals, put on his hat, and strode out of the forge with a reckless
fling. A few minutes sufficed to bring them to the beach at the mouth
of the adit.
It was a singularly wild spot, close under those precipitous cliffs on
which some of the picturesque buildings of Botallack mine are perched--a
sort of narrow inlet or gorge which from its form is named the Narrow
Zawn. There was nothing worthy of the name of a beach at the place,
save a little piece of rugged ground near the adit mouth, which could be
reached only by a zigzag path on the face of the almost perpendicular
precipice.
Arrived here, each man lighted a candle, wrapped the customary piece of
wet clay round the middle of it, and entered the narrow tunnel. They
advanced in single file, James Penrose leading. The height of the adit
permitted of their walking almost upright, but the irregularity of the
cuttings rendered it necessary that they should advance carefully, with
special regard to their heads. In about a quarter of an hour they
reached a comparatively open space--that is to say, there were several
extensions of the cutting in various directions, which gave the place
the appearance of being a small cavern, instead of a narrow tunnel.
Here the water, which in other parts of the adit flowed along the
bottom, ran down the walls and spirted in fine streams from the almost
invisible crevices of the rock, thus betraying at once the proximity and
the power of the pent-up water.
"What think'ee now, my son?" asked an elderly man who stood at Maggot's
elbow.
After a short pause, during which he sternly regarded the rocks before
him, the smith replied, "_I'll do it_," in the tone and with the air of
a man who knows that what he has made up his mind to do is not child's
play.
The question being thus settled, the miners retraced their steps and
went to their several homes.
Entering his cottage, the smith found his little girl Grace busily
engaged in the interesting process of nursing the baby. He seated
himself in a chair by the fireside, smoked his pipe, and watched the
process, while his wife busied herself in preparing the evening meal.
Oh! but the little Maggot was a big baby--a worthy representative of his
father--a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous,
and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little
nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than
the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of
it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him
were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers to throw each other
by main force, and her intense desire to make baby Maggot "be good" was
repaid by severe kicks on the shins, and sundry dabs in the face with,
luckily, a soft, fat pair of fists.
"Sit 'ee quiet, now, or I'll scat oo nose," said the little nurse
suddenly, with a terrible frown.
It need scarcely be said that she had not the remotest; intention of
carrying out this dreadful threat to smash the little Maggot's nose.
She accompanied it, however, with a twist that suddenly placed the
urchin in a sitting posture, much to his own surprise, for he opened his
eyes very wide, drew his breath sharply, and appeared to meditate a
roar. He thought better of it, however, and relapsed into goodness just
as the door opened, and David Trevarrow entered.
"Oh, uncle David," cried little Grace, jumping up and running towards
him, "do help me nuss baby."
"What's the matter with the cheeld--bad, eh? Fetch un to me and I'll
cure him."
There was no necessity to fetch baby, for that obstreperous individual
entertained an immense regard for "Unkil Day," and was already on his
fat legs staggering across the floor to him with outstretched arms.
Thereafter he only required a pair of wings to make him a complete
cherub.
Little Grace, relieved of her charge, at once set to work to assist her
mother in household matters. She was one of those dear little earnest
creatures who of their own accord act in a motherly and wifely way from
their early years. To look at little Grace's serious thoroughgoing
face, when she chanced to pause in the midst of work, and meditate what
was to be done next, one might imagine that the entire care of the
household had suddenly devolved upon her shoulders. In the matter of
housewifery little Grace was almost equal to big Grace, her respected
mother; in downright honesty and truthfulness she greatly excelled her.
The description of Maggot's household, on that evening, would be very
incomplete were we to omit mention of Zackey Maggot. That young man--
for man he deemed himself, and man he was, in all respects, except the
trifling matters of years, size, and whiskers--that young man entered
the room with his uncle, and, without deigning to change his wet red
garments, sat him down at his father's feet and caught hold of a small
black kitten, which, at the time, lay sound asleep on the hearth, and
began to play with it in a grave patronising way, as though his taking
notice of it at all were a condescension.
That black kitten, or Chet, as it was usually styled, was accustomed to
be strangled the greater part of the morning by the baby. Most of the
afternoon it was worried by Zackey, and, during the intervals of
torment, it experienced an unusually large measure of the vicissitudes
incident to kitten life--such as being kicked out of the way by Maggot
senior, or thrown or terrified out of the way by Mrs Maggot, or dashed
at by stray dogs, or yelled at by passing boys. The only sunshine of
its life (which was at all times liable to be suddenly clouded) was when
it slept, or when little Grace put it on her soft neck, tickled its
chin, and otherwise soothed its ruffled spirit, as only a loving heart
knows how. A bad memory seemed to be that kitten's chief blessing. A
horror of any kind was no sooner past than it was straightway forgotten,
and the facetious animal would advance with arched back and glaring eyes
in defiance of an incursive hen, or twirl in mad hopeless career after
its own miserable tail!
"'Tis a keenly lode," said Maggot, puffing his pipe thoughtfully.
"Iss," assented David Trevarrow, also puffing his pipe, at the clouds
issuing from which baby gazed with endless amazement and admiration;
"it's worth much, but it isn't worth your life."
"Sure, I ain't goin' to give my life for't," replied Maggot.
"But you're goin' to risk it," said David, "an' you shouldn't, for
you've a wife an' child'n to provide for. Now, I tell 'ee what it is:
you lev it to me. _I'll_ hole to the house. It don't matter much what
happens to me."
"No, 'ee won't," said Maggot stoutly; "what I do promise to do I _will_
do."
"But if you die?" said David.
"Well, what if I do? we have all to come to that some day, sooner or
later."
"Are you prepared to die?" asked Trevarrow earnestly.
"Now, David, don't 'ee trouble me with that. 'Tis all very well for the
women an' child'n, but it don't suit me, it don't, so lev us have no
more of it, booy. I'll do it to-morrow, that's fixed, so now we'll have
a bit supper."
The tone in which Maggot said this assured David that further
conversation would be useless, so he dropped the subject and sat down
with the rest of the family to their evening meal.